Mark Thompson, the BBC's director-general, praises Robert Peston's
'outstanding' coverage of the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

Criticised for having too many chums at News International to report the phone hacking affair impartially, Robert Peston, the BBC’s business editor, has found a champion in no lesser personage than Mark Thompson, the corporation’s director-general.

“Anyone who has actually watched and listened to Robert Peston’s outstanding coverage of this story over the past few days will regard the idea that he is acting in some way as a mouthpiece for News International — or anyone else, for that matter — as frankly ludicrous,” Thompson tells me. “What is true is that Robert’s ability to break news stories does sometimes annoy other journalists.” Thompson chooses not to name any unfavourable stories that Peston has “broken” about News International, which also owns The Times. Doubtless, in terms of Peston’s “outstanding” journalism, Thompson is thinking of his business editor’s announcement on the 10 0'Clock News on Tuesday that he had discovered the “latest extraordinary twist” to the saga: that News International had passed on evidence to the police that Andy Coulson had, as editor of the News of the World, allegedly authorised payments to police officers. Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor, later wearily pointed out that it was actually Vanity Fair’s story.

Simon Greenberg, News International’s “Comical Ali”, shed more light on Peston’s “scoop” when he told Today how “this story came about”. He said his company elected to put the story into the public domain after being accused of withholding evidence. Pesto was, naturally, their conduit.

Peston emails me to say that he is “scrupulous” about impartiality, but signs himself “Bette” – a reference to my barb that he and Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor, had started to resemble Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in the film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?